A long-awaited memorial honouring victims of communist regimes will be unveiled on Dec. 12 in the nation’s capital, serving as a tribute to the millions who suffered under oppression.
“The Memorial to the Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge will recognize Canada’s international role as a place of refuge for people fleeing injustice and persecution and honour the millions who suffered under communist regimes,” the Department of Canadian Heritage said in a Dec. 2
press release.
The memorial is particularly relevant for Canada, where, in 2007, 25 percent of the population—roughly 8 million people—came from countries that endured communism, according to Alide Forstmanis, co-founder and treasurer of Tribute to Liberty, the project’s primary promoter.
“[Communism] is awful. It is devastating to people. It’s killing freedom. It makes people into prisoners,” she told The Epoch Times. “We live only one life, and people should not be living like prisoners.”
The memorial project, whose planning began in 2007, has faced setbacks, including a
demand from the late NDP MP Paul Dewar for Ottawa Center in 2015 to relocate it from its originally designated site in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. The memorial has since been moved westward to the terraces of the Garden of the Provinces and Territories in Ottawa.
In the project’s early stages, the Chinese embassy raised objections about the memorial in a letter to the National Capital Commission, which oversaw its construction, according to Ludwik Klimkowski, chair of Tribute to Liberty. Following this, there was a push to replace the term “communism” with a less specific alternative to avoid offending the embassy, Klimkowski told The Epoch Times in an
earlier interview.
Communist regimes are estimated to have caused the deaths of 100 million people globally through mass killings, man-made famines, and other draconian measures, according to
figures cited by Tribute to Liberty and supported by historical analyses. The Chinese Communist Party leads in causing an estimated 65 million deaths, far surpassing the Soviet Union’s 20 million. This toll includes casualties from political movements such as the Great Leap Forward, which resulted in famine, and the Cultural Revolution, marked by violent purges.
Forstmanis, whose parents came from Soviet-ruled Latvia, urged provincial education ministries to include more content in school curricula addressing the harms of communism. She highlighted the importance of educating future generations about the oppressive regimes and their crimes so that history is not forgotten.
“There should be more of history, so we understand and don’t repeat the mistakes,” she said.
